No Place Like Home

BELOW-PAR BONHOMIE that looked and felt like it should have been on the light channel. A bored-looking WILLIAM GAUNT traipsed around a two-up two-down with a hilariously large and wacky extended family in tow causing untold havoc. MARTIN CLUNES was one of them. Used to pop into the greenhouse with neighbour (ginger Dave Allen sidekick bloke, MICHAEL SHARVELL-MARTIN) for a crafty sherry. Titles were an embroidery hung on the wall, which fell off to comedy piano and big laughs. Every fucking time.

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8 Comments

Glenn A

June 25, 2017 at 4:50 pm

Didn’t they live in the type of home beloved of BBC and Thames sitcom scriptwriters, a thirties semi in the London suburbs with a Cortina in the drive? These sitcoms with Tory voting Middle England parents and very slightly rebelllious teeenage offspring seemed to be very big in those days. Most were awful, though, but No Place Like Home wasn’t that bad AIRC.

My main memory of watching this back then was the ginger bloke ( Stephen Watson) who played Martin Clunes’ brother in this tragically dying in a car crash in Spain at the age of 26 before the last season he’d recorded was screened, which added a morbid tone to watching the show. There seemed to be a lot of watching tragically expired people in the last thing they ever recorded back then – Gary Horton in Auf Weidenshen Pet and that teenage kid on Blockbusters who won all 5 Gold Runs as a double team who died in a cycling accident before the shows went out come to mind.

I remember the 5 Gold Run kid, he and his friend were a great team – wasn’t he called Owen something? Then right after they had won their fifth, the continuity announcer told us he was dead, and it was really shocking. They were so delighted when they won the holiday.

I seem to recall learning he’d died early on into his appearances. It made for really sad viewing – especially hearing him say unfortunate things like ” I’m dying of nerves here” and “the tension is killing me” during the show. I also remember Bob Holness recording a special announcement after the lad’s final show offering condolences to his family and friends. Another sad thing was they’d always flash up a photo of the previous gold run winners wearing the Blockbuster t-shirt each contestant could win, so you saw the poor soul and his friend smiling away happily for weeks after he passed away.

The main loss to me was Roger Delgado being killed in the summer of 1973( he was THE Master for me). It badly affected John Pertwee, who was close to Delgado, and contributed to him leaving Doctor Who the following year. Anthony Ainley, The Master in the last Tom Baker season, tried too hard to be like Delgado for me and for all I think John Sim is good as the current Master, The Master should really be played by an older actor with dark hair.